Don’t Be A Jerk to Service People: Being Kind Pays

I fly a lot. And in my travels, especially with flights, many inconveniences happen. You miss a connecting flight, they lose your luggage or you get bumped from a flight because they oversold it. 

It’s irritating but it happens. Especially when you need your business clothes for an important meeting. 

This happened to me when I was catching a connector to Tashkent last year when I was transiting through Istanbul. When I was about to board, one of the Turkish airline workers pulled me aside and said I was getting bumped because they oversold the flight. He was tired and looked nervous as he was dealing with 20 other pissed off passengers in my same situation. 

He was shocked when I smiled and calmly told him it was totally fine. And that I totally understood the situation. All that mattered was they got me there the next day & sorted out my hotel. He said with relief: “In my 6 weeks at this station, I have never had any customer respond this way.”

What a sad state of humanity. And I tell this story not to virtue signal how nice or understanding I am (I am usually NOT in almost all other aspects of my life) but to make a point. 

It almost never makes sense to get angry at a front desk worker. 

Reason Number 1: it’s not their fault as they didn’t cause it. 

Reason Number 2: they deserve your respect for the hard thankless job they do 

Reason Number 3: they can potentially help you fix the situation, so why antagonize them? 

And to conclude my little travel story: because I was nice to the guys, they not only got me on the flight but they also upgraded me to business class. Unlike the other passengers who yelled at them, and ultimately did not make the flight. 

I’ve never trusted or liked people who were rude to service workers like waiters, receptionists, PAs or airline check-in people. It shows a complete lack of character when you act like an arrogant prick around so called lesser status people. Like they are masters lording it over servants back in the olden times. Just plain awful behavior. 

The moral of the story: Be nice to frontline service people. It does not pay to be an As-hole to them. It’s bad karma and they can make things worse for you.